معرفی
Dr. Nikhil Nair is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Tufts University, USA, and a member of the Graduate Biomedical Sciences Program in Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University (2003), an M.S. (2006) and Ph.D. (2010) in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, he joined Tufts in 2010.
Research Focus: The Nair Lab engineers microbial systems to advance applications in biofuels, biocatalysis, and biomedical therapeutics. Key projects include synthetic biology approaches to reprogram microbial physiology, protein engineering for enhanced biocatalyst performance, and metabolic pathway design for novel product synthesis. Recent initiatives explore cultivated meat media optimization using microbial lysates and engineering bacterial spores for environmental remediation.
Key Contributions: Dr. Nair’s work bridges foundational biology and applied engineering. Notable advancements include a semi-synthetic regulon enabling yeast growth on pentoses, engineered lactobacilli for anti-biofilm activity, and machine learning-driven enzyme stability improvements. His lab also pioneered methods to quantify probiotic-mucus interactions and suppress false positives in biosensor-guided evolution.
Awards & Recognition: He was named a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (2025) for contributions to engineered biological systems. His research is supported by grants from the NIH, USDA, and industry partnerships.
Education & Training: The lab trains Ph.D. students, postdocs, and undergraduates in synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, and systems bioengineering. Current projects span lab-grown meat media development, antimicrobial peptide engineering, and synthetic microbial consortia design.
Career Highlights: Over 75 peer-reviewed publications, 5 issued patents, and invited talks at major conferences including the International Metabolic Engineering Conference and Synthetic Biology: Engineering, Evolution & Design (SEED).
